[...]... reflect the cynicism of late fifth-century Athens, as exemplified by the well-known incidents of the mutilation of the Hermae and the profanation of the Mysteries Less well known perhaps is the existence of a certain club whose members called themselves the Kakodaemonistae, a name chosen, according to Lysias,31 in order to mock both the gods and the laws of Athens The practice of this club was to dine together... attributes to Athens the role of culture bringer The stated purpose of this discussion is to establish Athens’s right to be the leader of a panhellenic expedition against the barbarians, that is, the Persians As such, its purpose is doubly imperialistic; not only is Athens to have hegemony over the other Greeks, but to conquer the Persians under the guise of hellenizing them.97 Both the text and the subtext... Ephorus and Theopompus In the Menexenus, Plato criticizes the immoral use of the past in contemporary political rhetoric One of the ways that the Athenian orators flattered their audiences was to use examples from the past, not just to espouse democratic ideology, but to create the mainstream democratic view of history In chapter 2, I examine what sorts of misleading or false information the orators... crises in Athens during the last quarter of the fifth century.44 Not only was there the moral disintegration arising from the war itself,45 but also the 41 There has been considerable debate as to whether or not Antiphon the sophist is identical with Antiphon the orator (see Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, 3:285– 86 and 292– 94) Recently, Michael Gagarin ( The Ancient Tradition on the Identity... himself from the other schools of his day In both defenses of his system of education, one dating from the beginning of his teaching career (Against the Sophists) and the other from toward the end (Antidosis),80 as well as the introductory section of the Helen (10.1– 15),81 Isocrates offers explanations for his criticisms of his rivals In short, he particularly objects to the impracticality of the high-flown... in which and the reasons for which the desire for moral instruction leads him astray from an accurate interpretation of the past Despite their differences, as members of the elite, writing for the elite, these fourth-century historians composed their histories in such a way as to promote aristocratic virtues By the beginning of the fourth century, there was a receptive audience among the elite for... aristocratic version of the past, in opposition in particular to the democratic version of the oratorical tradition Thus, despite their exclusion from Josiah Ober’s important study,6 the fourth-century historians do form part of the literary resistance to Athenian democratic ideology, providing more proof—as if any more were needed—that it is impossible to separate the moral from the political in the Greek mindset... with the policies of the radical democracy in Athens was widespread, not only from without, as we can see from the secession of many of Athens’s allies, but also within, as is shown by the very fact that the oligarchic revolutions of 411 and 404 occurred at all The members of the aristocratic class, already frustrated by the perceived incompetence of the demagogic leaders of Athens, were also suffering... found in the reverberations in the intellectual milieu from decades of political, social, and economic upheaval Among the most dramatic influences on intellectuals, particularly in Athens, were the sophists By the time that Thucydides was composing his history, the sophists and their teachings had taken firm hold in Athens,20 bringing with them a reevaluation of conventional religion and morality The sophists,... whitewash their lack of concern for preserving an accurate account of the past as to reclaim their place in the development of Greek historiography The interpretation of the past as a series of moral paradigms by these fourth-century historians represents a step of major importance in historiography, for it becomes the model for subsequent Greek and Roman historians, resulting in the development of the “scientific” . alt="" Lessons from the Past  Lessons from the Past  The Moral Use o f History i n F ourth-Century Prose Frances Pownall the university of michigan press Ann Arbor Copyright ᭧ by the University. Plato criticizes the immoral use of the past in contem- porary political rhetoric. One of the ways that the Athenian orators flat- tered their audiences was to use examples from the past, not just. examination of the intellectual context of the late fifth 2 lessons from the past century (chap. 1). The development of professional rhetoric and the ques- tioning of traditional morality by the sophists